3 Ways to Lower Your Website’s Bounce Rate

03/12/2013

High bounce rate indicates that your website and marketing strategy is lacking somewhere and that they need a major revamp. You are reading this article perhaps because you already know what bounce rate is yet let me walk you through it once to brush up your knowledge about it. As defined, bounce rate is the percentage of site visitors who leave after visiting one page. The metric evaluates how effectively your brand resonates with visitors.

But why do the visitors bounce? There could be n number of reasons behind it such as you are not providing the adequate information the visitor is looking for, it is taking too long to load your web page or its navigation isn’t easy, or maybe there is some bigger disconnect between the visitor and your website. Ignoring high bounce rate can make you pay big-time as you suffer both the ways, if the visitor is coming to your site by clicking on your ad, you are paying for every single click that they make, besides; you are losing your potential customers anyway.

1) Exceed or meet user expectations

One of the biggest reasons behind a higher bounce rate is not delivering upon the users ‘expectations. May be your site is not properly designed, your ads are misleading, the content on your site isn’t engaging or the information that your visitors were looking for is not even there. Not just these there could many reasons that lead to the visitor’s frustration causing them to leave your website.

Make sure the content on your website is relevant and consistent so that when visitors land on your webpage they don’t feel deceived or cheated. Whether it is the call-to action in your ad or the content of the blog, they should be consistent with their respective sources. For example if a visitor clicks on the headline of your blog, make sure the blog content is related to the headline to hold the customer interest that he had when he clicked on your link.

2) Build up a better Web Design

Sometimes, even a small change in design makes a difference and helps you have a lower bounce rate. Here are few tips on developing a better web design:

• Navigation should be clear as most of the times users leave your website because they can’t find what they are looking for. • Landing page should have a clear call-to action to avoid any confusion in the minds of visitors. • Be watchful of third-party content and widgets as they weigh down the site and increase load time. • Be careful with the font size and contrast on the web page. Make sure the content is easily readable keeping in mind that a large part of browsing happens on mobile devices. • It’s wise to have a responsive web design as that easily adapts to any kind of screen size giving users a better experience.

3) Enhance Your Brand Storytelling

Your brand storytelling as in how you communicate with the customers about your brand happens to be an important strategy when trying to maintain a low bounce rate. Make sure users understand who you are as a brand, what your site is about, what your offerings are and how will it benefit them.

So, this is how you can lower your site’s bounce rate by optimizing the web pages, building up a better web design, improving your brand storytelling and improving your content strategy. Please let us know if you have come across any such tips on reducing the bounce rate.

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